There’s No Defense for Ignoring Lalas
Rants, raves and miscellaneous ramblings while waiting to watch the Galaxy implode -- or maybe not -- for the fourth time in a Major League Soccer title game....
With due respect to Chicago Fire and former UCLA player Carlos Bocanegra, it was the Galaxy’s Alexi Lalas who deserved to be named the league’s defender of the year, not Bocanegra.
Ignoring Lalas’ immense value to Los Angeles as the most quotable player in MLS -- and indeed in U.S. soccer -- his statistics were more impressive. For instance:
Both played 26 games, but Lalas scored four goals and had four assists (both personal bests) compared to Bocanegra’s two goals and three assists (also personal bests). Lalas contributed three game-winning goals compared to Bocanegra’s one, and one of Lalas’ game-winners was against the Fire.
Statistics aside, the fact that Lalas at 32 was able to perform at such a level should have counted far more in the voters’ minds than Bocanegra’s admittedly fine season at age 23.
Then, too, Lalas got his team to the title game; Bocanegra’s barely made the playoffs.
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Korean Mistakes
South Korea’s soccer federation took a large backward step Saturday by firing Coach Park Hang-Seo, the very man it had said last month would remain in charge through the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Park was the top assistant under Guus Hiddink as the national team reached the World Cup semifinals. After taking over from the Dutchman, he led the team to the bronze medal at this month’s Asian Games.
But he didn’t win the gold, the team falling on penalty kicks to eventual champion Iran in the semifinals, and for that he paid with his job.
The federation has unrealistic expectations. The national team overachieved this year, but instead of building on its unexpected success, soccer leaders in the country are demanding even more.
It would have been much more sensible to have retained Park and the experience he has gained. Instead, it’s back to square one. Bad move.
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More Stupidity
Despite repeated searches, no sign of intelligent life has been found within CONCACAF, the loose-knit confederation of 38 North and Central American and Caribbean soccer federations.
The organization’s latest hare-brained idea is to tell CONMEBOL, its counterpart in South America, that it no longer wants to see Mexican teams made to hop through hoops to take part in the Copa Libertadores.
The argument is that Mexican teams have done so well in what originally was intended to be the South American club championship that they should not have to qualify at all but instead should be invited directly into the tournament proper.
Nonsense.
What CONCACAF ought to be doing is not allow its teams to take part in the Copa Libertadores at all.
CONCACAF has its own Champions Cup, but it will remain an insignificant event as long as the door is left open for this region’s best clubs to participate in what they perceive to be a more prestigious tournament in South America.
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Rude Referee
Given the way referees are verbally abused by fans, it’s a wonder that more of them don’t react the way one of Norway’s leading officials did the other day.
Roy Helge Olsen was handed a one-match ban by the Norwegian soccer federation for making an unseemly gesture toward fans who were barracking him as he left the field.
“Referees are also people, and sometimes we react like that,” Olsen said in apologizing for his behavior.
Referees are people. Who would have thought?
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A Lesson for Mexico
Club America of Mexico City, which has won the Mexican title nine times and is the defending league champion, wanted to celebrate its 86th anniversary in style, so it invited Spanish champion Valencia to play a game at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City last week.
But Valencia, with commitments of its own, decided to send a reserve team. As a result, Club America canceled the proposed game.
That should be a lesson to MLS teams and American promoters.
The next time a Mexican club sends an under-strength team to play in this country, the game should be canceled.
If not, MLS and the promoters are simply ripping off the fans and hurting the sport.
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Arrogance Again
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge is never happier than when he is whining about some imagined injustice.
The Bayern Munich chairman’s latest cause is to get the smaller nations tossed out of the quadrennial European Championship by consigning them to a pre-qualifying event that would eliminate all but one or two.
It’s an old, tired and bad idea, but it was not surprising that Rummenigge unearthed it the day after his beloved Germany, ranked fourth in the world, was almost tied at home by the Faroe Islands, ranked 119th.
Heaven knows what Rummenigge might have recommended had Germany lost, instead of scraping to a 2-1 victory in Hanover.
The suggestion is typical of the former World Cup player’s arrogance and was deservedly stomped on by Gerhard Aigner, chief executive of UEFA, European soccer’s ruling body.
“It can’t harm the highly trained and spoiled professionals to take a look at the reality of life and our continent,” Aigner said.
“The matches also give the smaller teams the chance to measure their progress against the larger teams.
“A little damn solidarity can be expected. Please excuse my anger.”
Excused. In fact, praised.
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Just Asking
Fans understand that MLS clubs can’t compete financially with leading European teams for players. What they don’t understand is why a team such as the Shimizu S-Pulse of Japan’s J-League could afford to sign South Korea striker Ahn Jung-Hwan while the Galaxy could not.
And bringing in downward-spiraling defender Hong Myung-Bo next season, when he will be 34, isn’t the answer either.
And Finally
If Southern California really has 90,125 women’s soccer fans -- that was the attendance at the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup final at the Rose Bowl -- those same fans will turn up in the same stadium a week from today when the Americans begin defense of their world championship.
The U.S. plays Mexico in its first stop on the road to China 2003, and if Brandi Chastain, Joy Fawcett, Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm and Kristine Lilly alone aren’t worth the price of admission, who is?
Tiffeny Milbrett, that’s who.
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Europe’s Best
Europe’s top 15 leagues as ranked by UEFA (based on performance of each league’s teams in European Champions League play over the last five seasons:
1. Spain, 2. Italy, 3. England, 4. Germany, 5. France, 6. Greece, 7. Netherlands, 8. Turkey, 9. Portugal, 10. Russia, 11. Czech Republic, 12. Scotland, 13. Ukraine, 14. Belgium, 15. Austria.
